Month: January 2013

Introduction of REC(https://www.recregistryindia.nic.in/index.php/general/publics/AboutREC) trading framework has been a significant step in 2010,transforming the renewable energy market to go for market based modelled approach. Success/ Failure of the REC Trading framework can be gauged from the inventory being built up in monthly trading sessions. Of the 712792 RECs put up for sale in the two power exchanges in Sep 2012 session, about 450000 remained unsold and moreover 37% of the REC holders didn’t participate in the trading session at that time. This growing demand supply mismatch is giving alarming bells to the project developers and various potential investors who are eager to invest in RE sector in the near future.
REC mechanism seeks to expand its horizon from resource rich states to the deficit states but the key factor which will lead to success of REC is the RPOs by various obligated entities. Nonetheless state power regulators need to play a proactive role in the development of REC market. Till date all states except Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim have declared their RPOs explicitly(http://ceew.in/pdf/Appendix_F-Renewable_Purchase_Obligation_for_States.pdf).
A survey was conducted to gauge the total renewable energy capacity of states,RPOs declared by them, CUFs of various renewable sources of energy. It has been analysed that only 4 states -Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Karnataka and Maharashtra have significant wind power installations and RPOs higher than those required in 2010-11 and 2011-12.For eg Tamil Nadu needed about 4000MW of renewable energy capacity to meet its RPO of 14 % and it has already installed capacity of 4908MW.Except these states, rest of them were unable to meet their solar RPOs.

Weak Links
-There is huge inconsistency in RPO norms across the states. NAPCC,2008 targets 5% of the total grid purchase to be achieved through renewable energy. However in the absence of national level RPOs, states have been fixing their own targets depending upon the availability of renewable energy in that particular area.
-Another risk that is quite prominent as far as REC market is concerned- regulatory capture by the obligated entities which further skews the market against developers and investors. Certain states have been revising their RPOs targets in a downward trend for e.g Tamil Nadu(wind rich state) revised from 14% (2010-11) to 10% (2011-12).According to regulators, unrealistic targets imposed by some state regulators could set a wrong precedent not only for the state. Similarly, in April 2012, MP Power Trading Company Ltd. requested MPERC to waive RPO targets for solar energy for 2011-12 and 2012-13 because no solar power plant has been commissioned in MP and solar RECs were not available for trading on any one of the exchanges.
-RPO setting in most of the states is based on the assessments that are outdated. Therefore, they are set much lower than what could be feasible. Some stake holders are worried about the impact on tariff due to these targets. Like a study conducted by CRISIL along with CERC indicated that compliance with NAPCC target will have a marginal tariff impact of Re 0.01/unit/consumer ,reducing every year to reach Re 0.005/unit/consumer by 2017.
-Another risk that is anticipated by developers is lack of visible long term RPO trajectory. Only 7 states(AP,karnataka, Delhi, HP, Kerela, Maharashtra, Odisha) have declared their RPO trajectory till 2015-16 or beyond.Limited Focus on CPPs and Open Access consumers
While most of the states have amended their regulations to include open access customers and CPPs under the purview of RPO but still there are some states which have not notified their OA and CPP consumers to meet RPOs. The glim scenario can be seen from the trading of RECs over IEX in which over 90% of the participants are DISCOMs and there have been very few CPPs and Open Access users. But there are states like Karnataka i.e KPTCL directed OA users in the state to fulfill 5% RPO for 2011-12.Similary Chattisgarh has also notified CPPs to provide RPO compliance on monthly basis.Small Beginnings
Recently Rajasthan high court dismissed an appeal raised by Hindustan Zinc, Ambuja Cements etc that had challenged RPO regulation enacted by RERC. The petitioners stated that RERC did not have authority to pass the RPO regulation and impose a surcharge(penalty) as CPPs and OA were completely de-licensed under EA 2003.However Jaipur bench of High court rejected the petition stating the exact meaning of word ‘total consumption’ as total consumption in the area of distribution licensees in all modes. One of the reason for non compliance is the lack of incentive mechanism to support RPO implementation.Supportive Measures
-A key stumbling block in the implementation of RPO is the financially strained DISCOMs. Burdened with over 2 trillion of losses, how can one expect DISCOMs buying costly RECs? However a recent development is the Debt restructuring for the DISCOMs(http://powermin.nic.in/whats_new/pdf/Financial_restructuring_of_State_Distribution_Companies_discoms_Oct2012.pdf)
-Another encouraging trend is that several DISCOMs have been facing losses due to their inability to hike tariffs but recently over 17 states have revised their tariffs giving a good signal to the market stabilization for RE.Need to Improve REC Market Design
-There is lack of visibility in floor and forbearance price beyond the initial five year period because only non PPAs based sales are eligible for RECs.
-REC trading is restricted to auction markets and can be conducted only on a “once through” basis, thereby not permitting forward contracting and liquidity reduction.There is a sheer need of secondary trading market,which both the exchanges as well as industry players have been seeking for some time.
-Finally compliance window has to be shortened to a quarter or half year to ensure that there is continuous procurement action on obligated entities.

Thus,REC markets will fail to bring the desired results unless regulators are empowered to enforce the RPOSs and DISCOMs are allowed to function as independent power utilities rather than as an arm of government.

As discussed in my previous post about the sorrow plight of Indian Coal Sector. The demand supply gap of Indian Domestic sector is increasing with each succeeding year (161MT ;2011-12). Under the umbrella of this mismatch between demand supply of Indigenous coal sector ,various recommendations have been put forward which can be summarized as:

Innovation and Technology:

1.Increase in Coal Production :Today, as the world has already started looking after a ‘sustainable practice’, in any domain and industrial and commercial practices, we really need to start assessing our potential and compare practices in the country vis-a-vis the other parts of the world which are more advanced in the sector. There can be 4 major advantages with the advent of new technology like Higher returns(IRR),Lower environmental degradation, lower per tonne of ore cost and higher production realization. An example of innovation in coal mining is moving from smaller capacity shovel to bucket sizes of even 25-30cu m capacities depending on factors like mine geology, size of mine etc. having digging capacities of the order of 11,000 MT/hr.

Effective exploitation of resources: Evaluation of mineral resources required typical geological models and various geological technologies and the prospect of getting coal reserves in those particular areas is heavily dependent on the extracted data. As on April 2011

Total coal resource: Proved -114001.60,Indicated- 137471.10,Inferred- 34389.51, Total – 285862.21 .
Due to various limitations of the renewable sector, there is a need to tap our huge coal reserves. As far coal mining is concerned ,most of the mining practices are Open case mines(around 90%) as compared to Under ground mining thereby leading the drop in net coal production in some areas where the coal seam in as below as 90-100KM.Some of the prominent steps that can lead to increase in coal production are Use of proper and scientifically proven mining technology, Adopting the correct mining method (OCM/Long wall/other variants), Combining smaller mining areas to develop these into one single mine of large capacities, Promoting mining industries to have a maximum level of extraction by giving them incentives/tax rebates, Close monitoring by our government agencies in each mining project to crosscheck,the progress of each mining project in terms of percentage extraction,Meeting targets of mining projects not only in terms of production (per annum),but also on per annum level of extraction to match with the overall mineable reserves of a mining project.

3. Coal Quality Improvements : Indian Coal is characterized by high ash content, low sulphur,low moisture content. Lower washeability index, lower liberalization size. Due to these peculiar problems in Indian coal, there comes the need to go for importing of coal. CFRI(Central Fuel Research Institute,Dhanbad) has proposed some of the methods to improve wash ability index of the coal like improved froth floatation process, oil agglomeration process, oleo floatation process.(http://eprints.nmlindia.org/5887/1/Chap_9.PDF)

4. Improving Infrastructure and transport: One of the major issues being faced by the industry for the coal movement within India is transportation and infrastructure. Following are the major challenges being faced in coal transportation:

-Lack of availability of proper transportation mode for produced coal

• Mismatch between the demand and supply of railway wagons

• Lack of infrastructure to support a coal movement at full capacities

Some of the steps to improve the transport facilities and infrastructural requirements in order to compliment the coal industry rather than hamper its progress are as follows:

• Enhanced road connectivity across mineral zones and consumers

• Infrastructure developments driven by PPP

• Restructuring and/or reallocation of railway networks to connect with the coal

bearing areas

• Doubling of railway routes at places where coal movement is higher

• Enhancing port capacities as well as evacuation efficiency and augmenting the

existing capacities from existing ports.

Policies and Regulations: Without relevant policies measures and regulations every step will be of no use. Government has recommended various policy measures in its report of Coal Competitiveness and they can be summarized as follows:

Auction of Coal licenses/ non coal minerals through competitive bidding and thereby leading to a boost In investor confidence.

MMDR Bill 2011 guaranteed annuity of 26 % to the local population, thereby increasing the inclusion of host population in the mining process in particular area.

Drafting of national sustainable energy framework for mining areas.

Thrust on exploration on mineral resources by AMD, GSI, CMPDIL and MECL and classification of mineral resources as per the United Nations Framework Classification (UNFC) code.

Setting up of coal regulatory authority that will act as watch dog for coal pricing mechanism in India.

Single window clearance mechanism for taking the clearance such environment, land etc.

Above mentioned recommendations and policy regulations if implemented with proper strategy will ultimately transform India from Coal Importer country to Coal Exporter Country in the near future.

References : Report of Indian Chambers of Commerce,MoP,Newspaper Abstracts etc.

Globally, coal resources have been estimated at over 861 billion tonne.While India accounts for 286 billion tonne of coal resources (as on 31 March 2011), other countries with major chunk of resources are USA, China, Australia, Indonesia, South Africa and Mozambique.Coal meets around 30.3% of the global primary energy needs and generates 42% of the world’s electricity.India has the fifth largest coal reserves in the world. Of the total reserves, nearly 88% are non-coking coal reserves, while tertiary coals reserves account for a meager 0.5 % and the balance is coking coal. The Indian coal is characterised by its high ash content (45%) and low sulphur content.The power sector is the largest consumer of coal followed by the iron and steel and cement segments.

Some Facts about Coal Generation:

At the end of September 2012, 35 coal-based power plants had less than seven days of

coal stocks . This was due to the following:

Twenty-two of these occurrences is due to no, inadequate or delayed receipt from Coal India or one of its subsidiary firms.

Ten of these instances are due to plants running at above-planned PLFs.

Five instances are due to inadequate import of coal.

Similarly, for the first half of 2012-13, the average PLF of coal-based plants has been 68.27%, as opposed to 71.20% for the same period a year ago. Approximately 12.3 BU of generation shortfall in this period is directly attributable to the shortage of coal.

Some of the broader aspects of the Coal Sector can be listed as follows:

Operational and Sustenance Issues:

Issues relating to fund raising for various coal projects in rural and semi urban areas, and this can be primarily cited as monopolization of the CIL in the sector which is barring the private sector investment in the sector

Private sector investment is also underdeveloped as there is not a detailed classification of various minerals according to UNFC(http://ibm.nic.in/unfc.pdf).

2. Key Administrative Issues:

Long queue of Mining applications are lying at various levels of state and center levels thereby creating roadblocks in the path of adequate mining.

There has been a proposal for Single Window Clearance Agency(SWCA) that will root out the so called “red tapism” in various governmental procedures.

There have been a case of multiple registration counters/mechanisms for traders,miners,developers thereby making the final target a blurred one to be achieved in a target time.

3. Regulatory Issues: According to mine developers there are many loopholes in the policy regimes and regulatory issues regarding mining of natural resources.Prominent ones may be listed as follows:

There is a lack of incentive mechanism in the mining sector-recommendation will be like to extend performance based incentive as has been laid down in NELP policies.

There has been lack of policy support in transfer of mining licenses.The mine owners are not able to mine scientifically while complying to all the environmental norms and would like to dispose off these areas or develop them through forming a joint venture.States may allow this move in order to increase the production capability of the state mining companies.

The government must strictly adhere to timelines as per the MMDR act and MCR, and extension should be granted only on genuine cases as permitted under law.

4.Fiscal Issues: There have been really poor connectivity issues between the mining areas and moreover the evacuation facilities are also having a downsizing trend.

5. Infrastructural Issues: Cadastral (Khasra) maps are either not digitized or the geo referencing has not been done properly. This creates problems in lease boundary determination, thus hampering genuine miners. As a recommendation states may appoint a nodal agency to undertake these prefeasibility studies and thereby indicating the authenticity of data too.

These are some basic issues that are needed to be tackled by Indian Power Sector at the earliest and thereby making it a efficient coal production nation. Various recommendations about the problems will be taken up in the subsequent posts.